Monthly Archives: March 2009

I wonder if I’ll even die on time.

Posted in Diapers, Divinity by

makes_eat_timeIn college, I had a roommate who was ALWAYS late.  It made me crazy.  We would all be ready to leave for church or a night out and she’d still have curlers in her hair and just be beginning the process of looking for her things and grabbing something to eat.  She would pretend like she was in a hurry, but she was so slow at getting things done.  I had no patience with her.

Fast forward to the present.  I know God loves me, but I’m confident He laughs at me.  He turned me into her.  He gave me children, and I became my old roommate.  I think I have been on time to less than one dozen events since Grant was born six years ago.  I do not think He will cure me of this problem until I stop getting mad about it.  I noticed the other day that I always drive like I’m in a hurry because, well, I usually am.  At best, I’m about five minutes behind schedule, and at worst … um, let’s just say that sometimes I give up on even going where I was headed in the first place.  Not to make excuses, but — actually, yes, I will make excuses!  These are the reasons I am never on time:

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  1. Children who wear diapers ALWAYS poop on the way out the door.
  2. It does not matter how many times you have done laundry and sorted thousands and thousands of pieces of mismatched footwear, your children will NEVER be able to find socks when you say it’s time to go.
  3. They do not want a coat when they need one, and they want to bring extraneous toys and books along when they do not need them.  Battles about said preferences ensue.
  4. Even if you get all your children dressed and ready one hour before it’s time to leave because you are trying EXTRA hard to be on time, they will pee their pants or step in yogurt in their socks or take off their jacket and hide it in some place that will take you at least 25 minutes to find later because they “don’t remember” where they put it.
  5. Although I’m finally starting to get past this stage, small children have a mass amount of equipment that needs to accompany them on every outing.  So even when you get them ready to go, you have to check your “suitcase” and make sure you  have enough junk to prepare you for anything that may come your way, from an extreme diaper blowout to the possibility of being abducted by aliens and having to entertain your child for an extended period of time while you wait to appear before the intergalactic tribunal.  I have no idea where that just came from.
  6. Even if I am going somewhere without the children, the process of getting out the door feels like trying to escape from quicksand.

Every time I hear one of those talks about how important it is to arrive to church early so that you can prepare yourself to hear the messages, and not be disruptive to the congregation with your late entrance, I just get mad.  Do the people who give this counsel remember what it’s like to have small children?  I’m mad at myself, mostly, because I can’t seem to figure it out.  I do not know why I have not been able to overcome this struggle.  I have tried many experiments.  Charts on the door.  Restraining all children in car seats and THEN gathering equipment.  Getting ready earlier.  Organizing my front closet so that all coats and shoes and backpacks and bags are easy-access.  Yelling and barking orders.  Skipping breakfast.  I’m still late.  I’m doomed.  Wait a second.  I just realized, for the very first time in six years, that I have never once prayed about it.  I’m serious.  I’ve never had that thought before.  Duh. Is there really a chance that Heavenly Father would help me get out the door on time?  Then what would He laugh at?  Oh please, He’s got PLENTY to keep Himself entertained on the Stephanie Channel.

I can’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, part of this whole struggle is not so that I learn to be on time, but so that I learn to be PATIENT.  Can I be rushed and still be kind to my children?  Can I purge myself of all the frustrated feelings and just get on with my life?  Can I be running late to church and not get mad about it, thereby ruining my chances of feeling the Spirit there anyway?  Ugh.  I have always loved the writings of Neal A. Maxwell and I found an awesome talk he gave entitled, “Patience.” Check out some of these gems from that talk:

“When we are impatient, we are neither reverential nor reflective because we are too self-centered. Whereas faith and patience are companions, so are selfishness and impatience.”  . . .

“Clearly, without patience, we will learn less in life. We will see less. We will feel less. We will hear less. Ironically, rush and more usually mean less. The pressures of now, time and time again, go against the grain of the gospel with its eternalism.”

I love his stuff because he takes simple principles and attributes and places them in an eternal perspective.  So I’m feeling a little renewed after writing this.  I might even humble myself enough to hear some of your suggestions for being on time.  I’ll try really hard not to roll my eyes when I read them.  But I’m definitely trying that prayer thing, too, because bless my roommate’s heart, living late all the time is no fun.

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Reminder:  As of April 1, this blog will be hosted solely at http://www.diapersanddivinity.com (“wordpress” will no longer appear in the URL).  When that change takes place, the old feed will be reset and you will need to go there yourself and subscribe again (for the LAST time, I promise).  Any previous RSS feed will no longer work.

Extreme makeover: totally lame mom edition

Posted in Diapers, Divinity by

Much to my husband’s dismay, I’m kind of a binge-and-purge girl when it comes to chores.  You see, I kind of LIKE it when my sink starts to look like this:

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I mean, if my sink never began to be a health threat, how would I ever feel like a superhero?  Tonight I put the kids to bed and Clark said, “Mom, are you going to be upstairs or downstairs?”  This is code for “How much trouble can I get away with after you turn out the lights?”

“I’ll be upstairs.”

“Why don’t you go downstairs and work on the computer?”

“Because you would be naughty, and I have to wash the dirty dishes.”

Grant piped up, “There are a lot of dirty dishes indeed.”

What American 6-year-old talks like that?  “Indeed?”  I felt like I was in a Mary Poppins movie, except without a nanny or a live-in cook and housekeeper… more like the part where everything’s a mess right before they play that “Let’s clean up the nursery” game.

So we said our good-nights and I made my way into the kitchen to begin my superhero work.  You will hardly believe this ladies and gentlemen, but that very same sink only a few minutes later looked like this:

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See?  Why would I slave away my days obsessively rinsing and stacking each dish as it’s actually used when I would clearly rob myself of the joy of results brought about by my extreme makeover labors?  I just don’t get it.  This habit plays itself out in many areas of my life.  (I’ve learned that scripture study is not one that I can get away with; it HAS to be a consistent thing to work for me.)  Let me give another example where I struggle maybe a tad with consistency.  Just this past weekend Matt said to me, “Steph, you are perfect in almost every way, but you suck at laundry.”  I have no idea what he’s talking about:

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However, lest you judge him too harshly, I already knew I sucked at laundry.  If I still had any of my blog archives, this is where I would link you to a bunch of old posts lamenting my laundry woes.  I choose to focus on the part of his statement that acknowledges that, like Mary Poppins, I’m practically perfect in every way.

You know, I do think that maybe Mary Poppins had it right.  It’s magical to change things around, but in the end what brings us the most happiness is time well-spent with our families.

In an article written by a woman named Winnie Dalley, she outlines what I believe is the most important thing for us mothers to remember amid all our tasks, whether we do them constantly or in frenzied spurts.  The quote’s a little lengthy, but I’m betting that you’ll recognize yourself in it right away:

“Nearby in the kitchen, a mound of dirty dishes waits for me in the sink. The laundry is not done, the carpet not vacuumed, the bathroom not scrubbed. Toys are strewn haphazardly all over the living room and kitchen floor. A pile of unpaid bills sits arrogantly on top of the bookcase, exerting silent authority. All of a sudden, the negative aspects of the moment seem to outweigh the positive.

But it is really not so. I remind myself that I need to look beyond the temporal mists and regain my eternal vision of clarity. A house does not have to be perfect to be a home of joy, a child does not have to behave perfectly to love and be loved, and every moment of life does not have to be perfect to be of value. Too often, I realize, we fail to see the glorious reality of the simple joy that abounds in the seemingly mundane routine of day-to-day living. Instead, we tend to idolize the past, idealize the future, and devalue the present. We complain abundantly, we worry too much, and we appreciate too little. We forget Amulek’s exhortation to “live in thanksgiving daily, for the many mercies and blessings which [God] doth bestow upon” us (Alma 34:38), as well as Alma’s counsel to “let [our] heart be full of thanks unto God” (Alma 37:37). What better way to show our appreciation to Heavenly Father for what we have than to embrace our lives, albeit “ordinary” and “unexciting,” with joy?

Motherhood is not always idyllic; nevertheless, it is one of the greatest and most glorious experiences I have encountered. I have no doubt in my mind that whether it is performed in this life or the next, it is the most important work a woman will ever do. Just as the worth of a child is immeasurable, so is the worth of a righteous mother, and so is her joy”

Right on, Winnie. I also recently came across an old article in the Ensign that referred to a small plaque engraved with the following prayer:

Dear God,

We work and pray, but at the end of the day, no matter how hard we try, there are still many reasons to cry. So please send us angels to comfort us in our fears and help us turn the small successes into cheers. Amen.

I think I should hang that plaque in my kitchen.  I’m hoping angels come do the dishes and laundry tomorrow, but in the meantime, let’s hear it folks:  Three cheers for Stephanie and her clean sink.  “Hip, hip hooray.  Hip, hip…”

Oh, and don’t forget what Mary Poppins said, “A spoonful of chocolate makes the chores go down.”  Don’t tell me if I remembered that wrong.

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Reminder:  As of April 1, this blog will be hosted solely at http://www.diapersanddivinity.com (“wordpress” will no longer appear in the URL).  When that change takes place, the old feed will be reset and you will need to go there yourself and subscribe again (for the LAST time, I promise).  Any previous RSS feed will no longer work.

Public speaking, Primary, and talking body parts

Posted in Diapers, Divinity by

I’m pretty sure four-year-olds are bipolar by nature.  Maybe it’s just Clark, but I need to believe it’s some universal trait that all children have and will soon outgrow.  This past weekend, my niece got baptised (In the LDS church, children are baptised at age 8), and she wanted her cousins to be a part of the program.  Grant gave the opening prayer, and Clark volunteered to give a talk.  I know what you’re thinking because it’s the same thing I was thinking:  Are you kidding me?  Are 4-year-olds even allowed to speak at baptisms?  He’s never even been baptised himself, for crying out loud.  This has the potential for disaster and great shame. But, his aunt insisted that if he wanted to do it, they would love to let him.

He took his assignment very seriously, and he did me proud.  He stood up there with great reverence and dignity, and delivered his little one-page sermon.  The bishop attending said it was the best baptism talk he’d ever heard in his life.  For posterity’s sake, and to get a glimpse of my mischievous and adorable boy, I give you Clark:  (The audible groan in the background is Grant reacting to errors in his computer game.)

Then this same kid was a headache at church the very next day.  I’m the Primary President (don’t choke), and I could not get him to stay in or near his seat yesterday.  He was wandering the room, playing with the chalkboard, hiding behind the media cart, etc.  After several failed attempts to redirect him, I went and got Matt and directed that Clark needed to finish out the rest of the meeting in a time-out (empty) room.

Later that night, Matt and I tried to talk to him about what happened at church.  His excuse was that “Primary was just so boring.”  Gee, thanks, kid.  It’s good to know that I’m up there doing that whole ridiculous song and dance for a good reason. Matt asked, “What’s more boring? Primary? or the time-out room?”  He thought for almost a whole second and replied, “They’re both the same boring.”   “Okay,” Matt said, “next week, we’ll just go sit in the time-out room the whole time then.”

“Nooooo!”

“But you said they’re both boring.  Where would you rather be?  In Primary? or in the time-out room?”

“Let me ask my hand.”  Matt and I look at each other, with unseen but understood question marks above our heads.

He then held his hand up to his ear and made this little squeaky voice sound as if his hand were telling him a secret.  “My hand chooses Primary.  Let me ask my other hand.”  More squeaking, and another vote for Primary.

“Now let me ask my foot.”  Squeakity, squeak, squeak.  “Primary.”

Another foot, belly, legs, arms … you know where this is going don’t you?

“Let me see what my bum says.”  It’s hard to squeak when you’re cracking yourself up.  I promise that pun was not intended.

Then he reaches for his front netherparts.  Matt interrupts, “No. Clark.  Just no.  You’re not going to talk to your p****!”  (I’m not afraid to say or type the word, but I don’t want this post to show up in Google for the wrong kind of search if you know what I mean.)

“No I wasn’t saying that.  What’s these called again?” (pointing below.)

Blink. Blink.  “Testicles?”

“Yep. Testicles.  Let me ask them.”  More squeaking secret code, and again the same conclusion.

I was crying by now, but trying as hard as I could to NOT act like this was hilarious, because  I shoud not encourage this kind of conversation, right?  All moms have moments like this when we observe our children (I’m trying to convince myself.  How am I doing?), where our feelings are a combination of shock, humor, wonder, and a teensy-weensy bit of pride for how clever and imaginative they are.

So anyway, the decision was unanimous.  Clark’s body wants to go to Primary next week.  Netherparts and all.

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Reminder:  As of April 1, this blog will be hosted solely at http://www.diapersanddivinity.com (“wordpress” will no longer appear in the URL).  When that change takes place, the old feed will be reset and you will need to go there yourself and subscribe again (for the LAST time, I promise).  Any previous RSS feed will no longer work.

A child’s prayer

Posted in Divinity by

First things first.  I cannot express the joy I felt as I saw your comments pouring into my inbox beginning yesterday.  I was so relieved that you actually found me.  A huge shout out to my little brother Steve, the expert in all things I choose to ignore.  (I dare you to read his blog… I have no idea what he’s talking about.)  Anyway, while I whined to him on the phone yesterday about my whole mess, he said, “Oh, I can fix that,” and within a few hours he did some kind of RSS feed forwarding trick that I believe somehow made my new blog show up in all your Readers and other feeds as if it were still coming from my old blog.  He’s a freaking genius.  Does anyone out there have any single sisters in Utah looking for the quiet and brilliant type (wink, wink)?  Moving on now . . .

n1002210788_53969_8404Have you ever noticed how powerful a child’s prayer is?  My kids often blow me away with the goodness of their prayers.  Especially Grant, my kindergartener.

Elder James E. Faust said,

“What is a prayer?  … We sing, ‘Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire, Uttered or unexpressed.’ Sincere prayers come from the heart.”

Well, Grant has prayed fish back to life, rain to stop, and the recovery of his lost brother at the mall.  I’m positive he’s the sole reason my parents were not robbed on their mission in South Africa because Grant prayed EVERY day, “Please don’t let the bad man steal Grandma and Grandpa’s stuff.”  If our family is driving down the road in a snowstorm and cars are sliding off the road all around us, we know we should ask Grant to pray.  He usually thinks of it first, though.  He’s good.

Unfortunately, he’s also sincere.  There are occasionally the meal prayers that say, “Please bless the dinner that it won’t be gross.”  Ha ha, very funny. Or “Bless Natalie that she won’t play with my toys.”  What a sweet little selfish guy.

So, this has not been my finest mothering week.  When my blog went down on Wednesday– the sad event that shall henceforth be called TDBD (The Day the Blog Died)– I spent the majority of the next two days either at the computer or thinking about the computer.  My children were not the recipients of much deserved attention from me, and the attention they did get was mostly grumpy and distracted.  I was frustrated.  I claimed the kids were naughtier than usual, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what the real problem was.  Nevertheless, this is Grant’s dinner prayer one of those nights:

“Thank you for this wonderful day.  Sorry Clark and me made some sins.  Please help us.  And please bless the food.  Amen.”

Aaagh.  I hate it when they’re better than me!  So then I reflected (who are we kidding? It was a guilt trip) about my own behavior, and last night when I put them all to bed,  I apologized.  I explained to them that my blog got broken and erased and that’s why I was so grumpy and spent way too much time at the computer.  Rather than begrudge my obvious failings, they were earnestly concerned about my blog and began asking many questions about how my blog “got disappeared.”  Grant had many theories.  This one was my favorite:  “I know.  I know what happened.  Maybe your blog was just tired, and it got so tired that it just went to sleep, and while it was asleep the computer just started re’rasing it.”  Then he offered to say a prayer about it and told me that “you and daddy should probably say a prayer about that blog too.”

If I were really a smart woman, I would have consulted Grant before we even began the backing-up-data process.  My children are my prayer mentors.  And I’m learning that simply by virtue of the fact that I am babysitting their little souls for God, He wants me to talk to Him about them more often.  This quote by Elder Holland inspires me every time I read it:

“Be believing. Keep loving and keep testifying. Keep praying. Those prayers will be heard and answered in the most unexpected hour. God will send aid to no one more readily than He will send it to a child—and to the parent of a child.”

I need to learn to put as much faith in my own prayers as I do in Grant’s.  But if anyone needs any miracles or anything, let me know and I’ll pass it along to him . . . just in case.

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Forgive me as I include this announcement at the bottom of all my posts for the next little while. Thanks to TDBD, there have been a few technology-related changes around here.  To my readers who subscribe to this blog through any kind of RSS feed, including Google Reader:  As of April 1, (no, this is not a joke), this blog will be hosted solely at http://www.diapersanddivinity.com (wordpress will no longer appear in the URL).  When that change takes place, the old feed will be reset and you will need to go there yourself and subscribe again (for the LAST time, I promise.)  May this be the end of the transition….

The day the blog died

Posted in About Blogs by

So here’s what happened.  Our computer had issues and we needed to reinstall the operating system.  I use(d) a program called iWeb to do my blogging, and I accessed all the administrative options through their software (offline).  Before we started rebuilding our computer from scratch, I checked to make sure that all my blog files were saved off site, and they were.  So we proceeded.  However, we discovered upon installing the new OS that I could not figure out how to get all those old blog files back into the iWeb software.  I called customer service and an “Apple expert” tried to walk me through my issues.  He kept telling me to look for a file called “domain” which I couldn’t find anywhere among the blog files I’d backed up.  Apparently it is essential in order to connect the blog data to the blog software.  I now quote the last three lines of our phone call:

“So, just to clarify… If we did not back up some folder called “Library” that has a file in it named “Domain,” and if we were not running the Time Machine program while we backed up our files… I’m screwed?”

“Yah, pretty much.”

(long pause.)

“Okaaaay.  Um, well, thanks for your help.”

I have created a photo montage for you to help you see what my hours at the computer were like today:

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So basically, the old blog has vanished into a black hole of adminstratorless web logs and has been stamped “failed to thrive.”  The good news is that by the end of the day, I finally figured out that I could go into all those files that I backed up and at least save them all on my hard drive as .html files.  So while they are no longer accessible on the internet, I DID figure out a way to recover and store all my post content without cutting and pasting for three weeks.

Unfortunately, however, this whole process of discovery and recovery was long and painful.  When Matt got home (thank goodness no class tonight!), I told him to go easy on me because I had suffered mild depression while mourning my loss.  When I finally got out of my desk chair and explored the house, this is what I found:

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And that is why, despite my normally super-frugal tendencies, I gave Matt a $30 budget and told him to please take the kids to Sonic and get dinner.  Things are mostly better now.

The RSS feed for this blog is probably different now, so if you subscribed in the past through Google Reader, RSS, your list of blogs you “follow,” or your sidebar blogroll, then you’ll probably need to add it again from scratch.  Sorry.  Thanks for coming back, though.  Thanks a lot.  I feel so sad that this whole thing may cause some blog-reading friends to fall through the cracks.  And I just realized that although I found my posts, I did lose all of the comments that were ever made.  Sigh.

Alright then, back in the saddle, I guess.

Does anyone out there know enough about WordPress to tell me how I make a little RSS button so that people can subscribe to this feed?  Maybe it’s automatic and I’m missing it.  Plus I do NOT understand how to add a photo to my sidebar despite reading all the instructions on FAQ.  This is all going to take some getting used to for me.

P.S.  Oh, next week I plan to transfer this blog to my own domain, which is at http://www.diapersanddivinity.com , but right now I’m leaving it up as is to try to direct old readers this way.  What a mess.  So sorry.